In many athletic contests, rough and sometimes dangerous encounters occur particularly among school children such as in football, soccer, and other sports and these have frequently led to injury to the head or spinal column of the user which can result in life long disability and even death. As a consequence, there has been a need for improvements in athletic helmets and a number have become available such as is disclosed in my prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,390,367, 5,621,922, 5,539,935, 5,546,609, 5,287,562, and Ser. No. 08/685,840. While these improvements have provided supervisory personnel the ability to monitor unnecessary or dangerous activities during athletic contests or even to prevent injury, the installation of such equipment as well as devices provided by others have not been widely accepted due primarily to the expense and the reluctance of officials to seek funding in already reduced school budgets.
The need for improved safety in such contests has become paramount with the increasingly large damage awards to victims, who are often students, who have suffered injury during athletic contests supervised by school officials. In professional sports, it is well known that a number of prime athletes have had their careers shortened or their playing time diminished as a result of head injuries which are not accommodated by the present athletic helmet design.